David Parry, the former head of Big Ten officials,has been the national coordinator for the past 15 years and head of CFO since it was formed in 2008. He said he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease last June and decided then to finish out the season and retire.

"Rogers will be great," Parry said. "He's the (NCAA) rules editor. He's very knowledgable. Great track record. Outstanding referee himself. He's highly respected and regarded by people in the officiating business. I'm very happy and proud that he's going to be the guy replacing me."

Redding was an official from 1988 to 2005 before being named the SEC's coordinator of officials in 2006. His new job includes communicating officiating issues at all levels; creating and developing national training programs; assigning and evaluating postseason officiating crews; and creating national meetings of the college officiating community.

"I hate to leave the SEC because I really love what I'm doing and love working with that group of officials and Commissioner (Mike) Slive," Redding said. "But it's an opportunity to have an impact on football officiating at a national level. It just seemed like a natural next move."

New SEC supervisor of officials Steve Shaw

Shaw has worked eight BCS bowl games in his career, concluding with the Rose Bowl last weekend. He has been president of the SEC Football Officials Association.

Redding, who will continue to live in Birmingham, said in his new position he wants to do a better job educating the media on rules. "Football officiating as an industry has not done a good job enough in that area," he said.

Redding said he also wants officiating to continue to embrace technology, and wants to spend time with Division II and Division III coordinators to apply the same kind of mechanics and rules interpretations at that level. "They're really the feeders for Division I," he said. "When those guys advance into BCS conferences like the SEC, they'll be better prepared to do things the way the CFO and Division I officials do it."

Parry had hoped for the CFO to eventually eliminate conference-specific crews and split the country into regional crews who report to a regional supervisor. The idea was that there would be honest-to-goodness neutral officiating that could alleviate concerns of favoritism toward particular teams.

Some conferences have teamed up and experimented with regionalized crews. But Parry said today that a national discussion on regionalized officiating has leveled off, and Redding said he doesn't see the idea catching on nationally anytime soon.

"I think the conferences should continue to play an important role in officiating," Redding said. "I think you'll see more in the way of combined training and clinics, but regionalized crews is pretty much on the back-burner."

Redding oversaw SEC officiating during both a successful and controversial period for the conference, which has won four straight national titles. The SEC was under fire nationally last season for high-profile officiating mistakes that included the public suspension of a crew. Coaches criticized SEC officiating so frequently last season that Slive began fining coaches for public criticism.

Told he will now go from fielding SEC fans' complaints to angry messages from fans all over the country, Redding laughed and replied, "Oh goodie."